A Photography and Travel Blog by Jamie Chan

Namaste

In my earlier post I mentioned that I’ll be travelling with someone I met on the streets!
I’d like to introduce the amazing Carla from Canada(:

Carla!

I was walking on the streets and was horribly lost as usual; a really bad habit of mine is that I run on auto pilot and keep walking straight when I am lost.
This actually works for me most of the time; unfortunately Thamel has no dead ends which means it’s like a never-ending maze…
I was really fortunate to meet Carla in a really odd situation where we were both fascinated by a cow standing in the middle of nowhere and I realised she speaks English! *Cue hallelujah*
She pointed out where I was supposed to head to and surprise surprise, I was walking in the opposite direction all along.
Living the spontaneous life, it was dinner; lunch and a taxi on our way to Nargakot and Bhaktapur!

Unlike Thamel, Nargakot is absolutely stunning!
For once, I was actually breathing non polluted air and the view of the mountains were nothing short of spectacular.
It was like wow; I’m finally in Kathmandu…

The incredible view

On our way down, we met two really interesting Nepali in this Hut and got invited for tea:

The interesting thing about this huts is that it is a bit like a ‘dating hut.’
Where couples or friends would gather to have tea/ food and just enjoy the view.
Drinking tea in a little hut surrounded by mountains; checked.

After tea, we headed down to Bhaktapur, a UNESCO world heritage site.
The place is extremely rich in culture and it is incredible to look at the infrastructure of the old days.As we were walking around, we reached the outskirts of Bhaktapur where lots of people were gathering . A guy approached us and asked what were we doing here in as much English as he could muster. I introduced myself and asked what was going on in English and improvised sign language.He then started to get really excited and told us that they were having a celebration!
It was a baby’s 5 months old birthday and before we know it, we were invited to join the celebration in which there was a huge feast with a lot of food.
We literally sat with the locals on the floor, got served the traditional Newari food, ate with our fingers, talked, drank and had so much fun!

The guy who invited us for the celebration

The birthday princess!

Cooking up a feast!

Traditional food

The place where we had our dinner(:

More food?

It was such an incredible experience as the hospitality of these people knows no bounds.
They were really friendly, sweet and even invited us to stay for the night!

I am in the midst of the KIO workshop now and did a few things that made it close to the top of the ‘Don’t tell my mother’ list’. Which includes cycling in Thamel during the rush hour.

I just have so many images and stories to share about this beautiful place, I try to blog whenever the internet actually works.